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^thats great! i was going through my subbed threads, and reread your guard, so knowing that they will becoming eventually is good

Wow, I didn't think it would still be read by anyone
There should be an update coming this weekend hopefully...

Wow. Not only did the Guard blog get an update this weekend, but so does this one! I also get to cross one item off my big List O' Tasks too, which is nice.

A while back I posted a not particularly well lit photo of ToTo, the cyber mastif from the FW event model this year. After a massive basing exercise this afternoon for 25 new infantry, I based ToTo as well. I don't think you've seen the fixed OSL on the eye either...



In game, ToTo will be used as a Death Cult Assassin or a Bodyguard, depending on if he's being used in pure Guard, or Inquisitorial allies.

I've also finished Knightley's Red Scorpion for the Great Marine Swap. I'm now pretty much out of Marine bitz, so I doubt I'll be doing another one any time soon. Again, I've tried to experiment with OSL and proper shading on the marine armour, rather than doing the GW edge highlighting. Unfortunately some of the shading is a bit too subtle for the photograph and the battle damage on the chest icon just looks like shoddy painting. Still... I'm really pleased with him and I hope he has many good fights once he reaches Knightley in Oz.



Oh. He's not based on purpose before anyone says anything.

That osl helps the doggy see in the grimdark seriously impressive stuff mate, I'm not crazy on big glowy osl but that's ace.

He had to have a big glowing eye to look even more menacing. He just looked a bit sad and ragged without it

Looks Amazing ET!

ToTo is AMAZING!

How did I miss this update? The OSL on ToTo looks great!

You can tell it's one of those days when you start the day planning on having a clearout of stuff because you're never going to get around to painting it and ending it by trying to go into GW and buy some new models to distract you from too much work.

Will try and post some actual updates shortly...

With the OSL, you're falling into the 'light colour making the surface darker' trap. Especially apparent on the marine's loincloth. Light sources can only ever make things lighter.

Selling off more goodies ET?

winterdyne wrote:With the OSL, you're falling into the 'light colour making the surface darker' trap. Especially apparent on the marine's loincloth. Light sources can only ever make things lighter.

Yeah, I've just tried taking some new photos of him and noticed that, darnit! I wasn't planning on doing osl on the loin cloth at all, so painted it with the shadows and forgot to undo them when I painted the glow on :/
I need a fair bit more practice on painting glows


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whalemusic360 wrote:Selling off more goodies ET?

Probably not too much; mostly a few gaming books that I got in another deal that I don't want/need.


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So. I said there were updates on various things...

Ages ago I bought an Ogre Firebelly and never got very far with it... too many bubbles. I decided to have another go at the skin last night. It's coming along, but still has a long long way to go



I've also put some more touches on the Grave Guard that I'm doing for Alfndrate. I'd accidentally made them all with two-handed weapons, rather than sword and shields, so had to start again on most of them. I hope he likes them



Lastly I've also started work on a Daikini for the Infinity Summer Swapsies. I like the main two colours, but it is looking rather plain... any suggestions for things to do to improve it?


There are also a few minor updates in the Guard thread. I should really take photos as I'm going, rather than a massive update every now and then :/

your grave guard look awsome!

I'm liking the grave guard... I wonder what the scale difference between Mantic's Elite Skeleton Warriors and the Grave Guard are

I think you will amazed how busy your Dakini will look once you wash and highlight it, I would do that before you make a decision to add another colour, oh and I like the scheme you've chosen.

waddya mean wash and highlight it? It *is* shaded and highlighted. The photo is just a bit washed out though so it doesn't come across very well


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Alfndrate wrote:I'm liking the grave guard... I wonder what the scale difference between Mantic's Elite Skeleton Warriors and the Grave Guard are

Glad you're liking them. I've also hacked apart some empire shields for them, but didn't stick them on in case you wanted to paint them first.
Is there anything else you'd like doing to them before I pack them up for postage?

Not that I can think of anything.

If the mantic ones skeletons are smaller, make sure you don't have any in the front rank and blame it on perspective

Haha, well the Grave Guard you made are standard bearer, etc... they'll be up front

endtransmission wrote:waddya mean wash and highlight it? It *is* shaded and highlighted. The photo is just a bit washed out though so it doesn't come across very well

Sorry I didn't mean the colours I meant once the White is washed and highlighted....unless you have already done that, in which case ignore me completely

I can't blame you; you can't really see all the careful shading of the white on the photo. I wonder now why I even bothered with that image :/

Oh work... why do you hate me so? The end of last year and the start of this one were rather tough and put a dampner on any enthusiasm to do painting or modelling... now that it's calmed down (at least for a week or two) I had time to stop and do something about it!

About a year back I started musing about Inquisitor Dorothea and her retinue; you've all seen Toto and I bought the bits for the Tin Woodsman, but never got around to building him. Well, we now have a start on it!



As you can see, I'm going for a slightly different setup to the dread, with a back mount for his autocannons as I needed two hands to make a proper woodsman. In his right hand he will be carrying a large wood cutter's axe (powered of course!) and in his left he will be grabbing a Dark Eldar Flying Monke... I mean Scourge out of the air. I'm just waiting for the scourges to arrive before I build any more so I can get the positioning correct.

On his chest you can see the start of a tree symbol. I'll be trying to add other symbolism onto the legs and shoulders before painting commences. One at a time though...

If you zoom in on the image, you can see the legs and torso are a bit battered looking. The original legs had some serious miscasts on, so i enhanced them a bit and carved more off so he looks very battle scarred. May as well make the most of the casting problems

I like that quite a lot... quite a lot. Looking forward to watching this progress endtrans, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait!

I've currently got three things I need to work out.

1) How the heck do I make a decent woodsman's axe?
2) Should I shorten the Autocannon barrels to make it less unweildy?

and most importantly... what chapter should he be? I fully intend for him to be so battered that most of his chapter colourings have come off, but some should still be seen. I'm currently trying to decide between Red Scorpions (because I used to have them), Deathwatch (because he's working with the inquisition) or a new chapter that uses trees and axes as their symbology?

Oh and yes. That's going to be a yellow(ish) brick road behind him

Executioners use axes... it's an old Badab War chapter. Be pretty cool I'd think.

To answer ur question
1. Get some sprues, and use pliers to squish them into cylinders, while ur doing this u'll see that the teeth of the pliers give the thing a nice impression that looks like wood, then just plasticard the axe head.
2. Naw, autocannons are suppose to look long and unwieldly *insert sexual joke here*

Oh and that inquistor is a mighty fine piece of work, i applaud you sir. And them chicken scourges, nice.

Hmmm. Executioners would certainly fit the axe theme; I'll need to run some tests with the colour scheme peeling off of metal though. The pale blue/grey of their chapter colours might be too subtle... possibly a deathwatch Executioner would well work though! The tree may just be some campaign marking... something to think upon there I think.

Deathwatch also raises the question of whether I should be trying to make the left arm and shoulder more ornate, like the DW marine armour

Good to see you back...

Liking the woodsman so far. Ogryn cleaver as a base for an axe?

I like the idea of Red Scorpions as it ties in with your old guys, but then you need to work the tree symbology in somehow...

If you're going to chop the AC's, I'd say not by much...may be a tad unwieldy at the moment, but need to see the rest in place before taking that decision I'd say...may help to balance out the monk...scourge depending on how that's placed.

Very nice, endtrans. I really like the back-mounted autocannons, and the whole tin man theme is brilliant. Will you do the rest of the Oz crew, too.

As for the axe, have you seen the massive axe Krautscientist did for his Worl Eaters Champion?


You might do something simlar with axes from Ogres or something.

Nice to have you back.

Thanks guys, it's nice to be back and have some form of enthusiasm again

For the axe I want it to be something like this



The handle needs to be about 2/3rds the height of the dread and the axe head large, but not massive. This thing would be wielded two handed by the dread; which would make it far too heavy or awkward for anything except a greater daemon. I suspect lots of trial and error will have to happen before I get something I'm happy with.

And as a reference for me later, here's a good article on painting M-NMM